The Second Coming
by Ms. Izzy
Summary: How do you pick up the pieces when you don't know what's left? Haruka, Juri and Kaname in Rido's aftermath.
1. vexed to nightmare

While I'm sure that I will be jossed soon enough, I wanted to play around with my favorite dysfunctional family during a period I haven't seen covered. (I'm not saying no one has written about it; I just haven't seen those stories. And yes, that was a beg for fic recs.)

All chapter titles are stolen from the William Butler Yeats poem, "The Second Coming."

* * *

**The Second Coming**

I. _vexed to nightmare_

Haruka found Juri in the nursery, sitting next to the tiny bed. She had taken to spending her days in the rocking chair where she used to sing their son to sleep.

"I think it would be easier," she whispered without turning to him, "if he didn't still look like Kaname."

Haruka just stood in the doorway, not knowing whether his presence would be welcomed.

Juri let out a soft sob.

"Why did he do this? How could he—"

Haruka moved quickly, rushing to kneel in front of her and wrap her in his arms. She hid her face in the crook of his neck.

Her voice was muffled as she keened, "We don't even know _what_ he did."

Haruka remained silent, but his grip on his wife tightened. Eventually Juri's cries lessened and she raised her face to look him in the eye.

"You're always so strong for me," she hiccupped, "Let me be strong for you. You don't have to hide from me."

At her words, Haruka collapsed. His tears were quiet but violent as he buried his face in her hair.

Neither noticed the one who was not their son watching them.


	2. full of passionate intensity

Thank you to the people who reviewed! I have an outline for the rest of the story, so I should be able to finish. I hope.

This chapter was near impossible to write and I'm still not completely satisfied with it. But I do admit to having fun with the idea of Hannibal Lecter-ish Rido.

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**The Second Coming**

II. _full of passionate intensity_

The first time Haruka saw his brother after the incident—he had to think in euphemisms if he didn't want to collapse—Rido was grinning at him through the bars of his cage. His lazy sprawl—still the same as ever, and _why did he get to act like nothing had happened_—was just as purposefully taunting as anything Rido ever did.

Haruka's fists clenched as he waited for Rido's keeper to unlock the first gate. The metal was so heavily imbued with hunter magic that walking through the door set sparks dancing along his skin. It was almost satisfying to think of Rido living in a place such as this.

When he was finally allowed into Rido's cell, Haruka was so tense that he could barely walk. It didn't help that Rido's grin just widened when he entered.

"So good of you to visit, Haruka," he drawled, "it's such a pity; we never seem to talk anymore. And of course you only ever come to see me when you nee—"

Haruka cut him off with a hand around his throat. He lifted his brother and slammed him against the wall, so that they were almost eye level with each other.

"What did you do?" he bit out, "What did you do to my _son?_"

Rido gave a mock pensive look and hmm-ed for a second before answering.

"The boy doesn't remember? Well, I wasn't sure if he would or not; he might just have to grow into it."

"Grow," Haruka snarled, "into _what?_"

Rido's grin returned with a vengeance.

"The hidden room in the family home," he said giddily, "the one that so scared us as children. I was trying to get _that_ one out. The greatest of us must serve me now!"

Haruka's eyes widened in horror for a brief moment before narrowing again in hate. He watched as Rido's skin started to bubble, his blood boiling within him in response to Haruka's subconscious use of power. If he didn't know that Rido could put himself back together so easily he might have ripped him to pieces.

In the end, that knowledge didn't stop him. As he walked through the gates, he heard Rido calling out to him, his torso having re-grown out of the blood splatter.

"You know they can't keep me in here forever!"

Haruka knew this. But he also knew that he would die before he let Rido get his hands on his family again.


	3. twenty centuries of stony sleep

I am really looking forward to when Ms. Hino reveals more about Kaname/the ancestor/_that damn door_. But until then, I get to play.

* * *

**The Second Coming**

III. _twenty centuries of stony sleep_

Rido finds the door while exploring his family's private residence; a hidden door in the library, some stone stairs, a long hallway, and then _this_.

Something in the smell of the door, in the feel of it, calls to the darker parts of him. It stirs the true beast inside of him—_the one hidden under pretty manners and lies that no one believes but everyone pretends to_—with promises of _something_.

And if there is a sense of soul-deep sadness and a despair that momentarily numbs his limbs…well, he never let anything like that stop him before.

Rido spends the following centuries—_millennia_—searching for answers to questions he hadn't known to ask. And when he can't find anything more—_when he assumes he knows all, in the way the arrogant and the foolish often do_—he waits.

When he hears of the birth of his nephew, he decides that his revenge on his brother can also serve another purpose.

* * *

Kaname finds the door while following a feeling. He knew this would be here, though he doesn't understand how he knows. He has never explored this far or this deep in his home.

But before he can think, the sadness overtakes him.

He has no way of understanding this; he is a small child who has always been surrounded by love and joy and happiness—_save for a brief time when he was filled with terror, but he doesn't really remember that_.

The closest he can come to describing this feeling is how he has felt watching his mother cry every night, or knowing that his father will barely look at him but not knowing _why_, or feeling the hesitation in hugs that were once so freely given. But even these don't come close to the loss he feels right now.

When his mother finally finds him—_she is frantic; it is too soon after his last disappearance_—he is curled up by the door, barely able to breathe through his sobs. But it is a comfort to him when she cradles him in her arms as she has always done—_as she had always done _before.

And as she carries him away, singing his favorite lullaby, his tears slow—_but the ache remains_.


End file.
